Young men play a game of rugby at sunset in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on April 10, 2019. The island nation of Tonga has reported its first-ever case of COVID-19 on Oct. 29, 2021 after a traveler from New Zealand tested positive. Mark Baker/AP hide caption
Young men play a game of rugby at sunset in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on April 10, 2019. The island nation of Tonga has reported its first-ever case of COVID-19 on Oct. 29, 2021 after a traveler from New Zealand tested positive.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) The island nation of Tonga on Friday reported its first-ever case of COVID-19 after a traveler from New Zealand tested positive.
Tonga is among the few remaining nations in the world that have avoided outbreaks of the virus. Like many of its neighbors, Tonga's isolation has helped keep it safe but it faces big challenges should the virus take hold due to its under-resourced health system.
The nearby nation of Fiji avoided significant outbreaks until April, when the delta variant ripped through the island chain, infecting more than 50,000 people and killing at least 673.
Tonga's Prime Minister Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa said in a radio address that the traveler was among 215 passengers who had arrived on a flight from the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Wednesday and had been isolating at a quarantine hotel.
A pig wonders around a house in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on April 7, 2019. Tonga on Friday reported its first-ever case of COVID-19 after a returning resident caught the virus while in New Zealand. Mark Baker/AP hide caption
A pig wonders around a house in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on April 7, 2019. Tonga on Friday reported its first-ever case of COVID-19 after a returning resident caught the virus while in New Zealand.
The prime minister planned on Monday to make an announcement about any future lockdowns, according to news website Matangi Tonga.
Christchurch had been free from the virus for months until this week, when four community cases were reported after a returning resident caught the virus while in Auckland, where an outbreak has been growing since August.
New Zealand health officials said the traveler to Tonga was fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and had returned a negative test before leaving for Tonga. The officials said they would be working with their Tongan counterparts to confirm the case and provide more details in the coming days.
Tongan Health Ministry chief executive Dr. Siale 'Akau'ola said it was unfortunate the plane had already left Christchurch before the news came of the community cases there, Matangi Tonga reported.
'Akau'ola said all frontline workers including health staff, police officers and airport staff who were on duty when the plane arrived had also been put into quarantine after the positive case was confirmed. He added that all those working near the flight had been vaccinated.
Located northeast of New Zealand, Tonga is home to about 106,000 people. About 31% of Tongans are fully vaccinated and 48% have had at least one dose, according to research group Our World in Data.
While his journey as a young father has been marked byheartache, Eric Robison is learninghow to make it workwith the support of the Fort Smith community.
Robisonfirst met with his future wife, Emily, on Facebook in 2017. Helivedin Houston, and she lived in Poteau, Oklahoma.
We talked for four weeks and then I drove in the middle of the night to pick her up and she never left after that, said Eric, 23.
Emily said she had been hurt too much in the past and they were makingitlast or it was not happening.
The couple met in August and were married by October.They moved to Fort Smith in 2020.
This year would have been their four-year anniversary.
Emily was admitted to Mercy Hospital in August while 28 weeks pregnant with their daughter, Carmen.
After spending three days on a breathing machine andnot improving,Eric was told to Facetime his wife and tell her it wouldlikely bethe last time they talked for a while.
"I Facetimed her and told her I loved her,"Eric said. "She started crying and asked if I was giving up on her. I was like, 'No'and promised her she would come back to me."
It was the last time Eric spoke to his wife.She died Sept. 20 of complications from COVID-19.
Emily Robison was 22.
Emily wanted a childalmost theentire time they had been together. Eric was always reluctant for them to get pregnant because of Emilys asthma.
"I was like this could end terribly, I could be a single dad,"Eric said. "I knew from the beginning I could be a single dad.Thatsalways been a worry of mine, and its happening, so."
Carmen was born Aug. 25 after an emergency cesarean section.Emily improved slightly after giving birth, but her health took a turn for the worse shortly after.
Handling the death of his wife and figuring out how to go forward for his daughter has not been easy.
"Its like sitting on your arm, and making it go numb, and the numbing never going away,"Eric said. "Youre trying to focuson what to do but youre so numb and your vision is always like blurry."
While he figures out his new normal, the community has rallied around the father and daughter, with the help of a local nursewho made it her mission to help the young family.
AshleeSchwartz had just started her shift when noticed a 22-year-old woman listed as one of thepositive COVID-19 patients in Mercys ICU.
Schwartz was struck by her young age. When she went to check on the woman, she found Emily in critical condition and in a medicallyinduced coma.
Later, Schwartz saw Eric staringemptilyinto Emilys room.
"Especially as an ICU nurse, the reality of life with this virus is any patients story could very well be our own story someday and I just thought tomyself, 'What if this was me sitting in a chair staring into my husbands room.'"
After learning the couple really only had clothes, she got Eric's permission to start a baby registry for Carmen.Schwartz later created aGoFundMe page for father and daughter.
The "Pay it Forward"fundraiser has raised nearly$25,000 since Oct. 3.
Eric saidit'slike his life has been sped up in recent weeks as his story has gone viral.
Hestalkedwith local,nationaland internationalnews outlets. He had to make his Facebook private and has more than 500 unread messages.
"I remember asking (Ashlee), 'Where do I go from here?'"Eric said. "'What do I do? What do you do afteryouvelost your wife? Is there a right way to do something,is there a wrong way?'"
Eric said the registry and GoFundMe have helped tremendously and gave him time to mourn without worrying if Carmen will have what she needs.
"To see our home literally overflowing with gifts for Carmen is beyond heartwarming,"Schwartz said. "Nearly all the items on the 'PayItForward'baby registries are gifted. My heart filled with so much joy and excitement seeing UPS/Fedexdeliver gifts daily for the past month and opening each box to see what gift arrived. I can only imagine how excited Emily would be if shewashere."
Life is still weird, Eric said.
"Three months ago Emily and I were at Eufala swimming, her being pregnant," Eric said. "Now she's gone. I'm on national TV time flies by so fast."
Through everything that's happened, Carmen, who has grown from around 2 pounds to more than 6, has been the bright spot for Eric.She's starting to recognize the world around her. After more than two months in the hospital, Carmen is set to go home Nov. 1.
Emily had chubby cheeks, which Eric loved about her. Carmen has the same cheeks.
"She looks just like her mom," Eric said. "She's identical to her mother."
Abbi Ross is the city reporter at the Southwest Times Record.She can be reached at aross@swtimes or on Twitter at @__AbbiRoss
The three-judge panel in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also sent the two court cases back to the lower courts to continue.
The ongoing court cases stem from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's order that all hospital and long-term care facility workers were required to get at least one dose of the vaccine by September 27.
CNN has reached out to the New York State Department of Health for comment, and details of how many exemptions the state has already provided.
An attorney for plaintiffs in one of the cases vowed to take the case to the US Supreme Court Friday.
"New York's mandate forces an abominable choice on New York healthcare workers: abandon their faith or lose their careers," said attorney Cameron Atkinson, who represents three nurses. "They have committed their futures to God's hands, and we remain optimistic that the United States Supreme Court will strike down New York's discriminatory mandate as violating the First Amendment."
In the second case, 17 health care workers, many of them unnamed doctors, residents and nurses, filed a lawsuit last month objecting to the New York State Department of Health's vaccine mandate, which didn't allow for religious exemptions. A judge issued a temporary restraining order on September 14 related to the religious exemptions.
CNN reached out to an attorney representing these health care workers for reaction.
Gov. Kathy Hochul praised the court's decision.
"On Day One, I pledged as Governor to battle this pandemic and take bold action to protect the health of all New Yorkers," Hochul said in a statement. "I commend the Second Circuit's findings affirming our first-in-the-nation vaccine mandate, and I will continue to do everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe."
Religious exemptions granted to almost 16,000 workers before ruling, official said
Nearly 16,000 health care employees in New York State have been granted religious exemptions by their employers prior to Friday's court ruling, the state's health department confirmed to CNN Friday night.
That's 15,844 employees of hospitals, nursing homes, adult homes, Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHA), Licensed Home Care Service Agencies (LHCSA) and hospice facilities, said Jeffrey Hammond, deputy director of communications for the New York State Department of Health.
Hammond provided a breakdown of the data, including the number of employees and percentages of staff impacted in each health care group.
Hospitals (as of October 26): 6,433 employees (1.3%)
Certified Home Health Agencies (as of October 26): 505 employees (4%), of which, 365 are direct care staff
Licensed Home Care Service Agencies (as of October 26): 5,573 employees(2.1%), of which, 5,070 are direct care staff
Hospice (as of October 26): 94 employees (2%), of which, 70 are direct care staff
Nursing Homes (as of October 29): 2,684 employees (1.8%), of which, 1,935 are direct care staff
Adult Homes (as of October 29): 555 (2%), of which, 309 are direct care staff
By Julian Grace, WRAL anchor/reporter
Raleigh, N.C. A local health expert is pushing back against claims made at a medical freedom summit in Raleigh on Saturday.
During the event, 12 panelists from various backgrounds across medical, scientific and legal professions took aim at the coronavirus response in North Carolina.
Speakers made unverified claims including the provided COVID-19 vaccine is causing injuries.
"The FDA panel admitted they have no idea of the side effects," one of the speakers told the crowd.
The speakers also touted use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as safe and effective treatments for the virus.
But, Dr. David Wohl, an infectious disease specialist at UNC Health, said the research doesn't support those drugs as being a better option than the COVID-19 vaccine.
"It comes to, show me the data and show me the really big data. I can show you the really big data on where it Remdesivir -- where it works and where it doesnt," Wohl said. "That's all we as providers want. We don't want wishful thinking."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has also previously warned medical professionals and the public about using ivermectin to treat coronavirus. In August, the CDC said there was an increase in reports of severe illness reported to drug centers after using ivermectin, which is used to treat parasites such as worms and lice in humans and by veterinarians to de-worm large animals.
Overdosing on ivermectin can cause stomach problems, nerve damage, seizures, disorientation, coma and death, according to the CDC.
Parts of the medical freedom summit in Raleigh focused on people suffering injuries after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Half of humanity, right now, have had at least one COVID-19 vaccine ... with that kind of number, if there was a side effect leading people to get sick [and] to get hospitalized, we would know it. It would not be a secret," countered Wohl.
WRAL Investigates searched through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's database of reported adverse reactions in April and found issues from blood clotting to heart and respiratory issues.
Out of the 216 million doses of the vaccine that had been administered from December to April, 68,000 adverse reactions were reported to the FDA.
Wohl said that he respects people's rights, but he also wanted to stress the importance of getting the vaccine.
He added that if you want to be conscious about your health, and protect others, get the shot.
JUST A FEW months after Indias public-health systems collapsed under a tsunami of covid-19 infections, the country is starting to feel it has something to celebrate. In good time for the season of Hindu holidays now under way, on October 21st Narendra Modi, the prime minister, declared that India had administered its billionth dose of vaccine. In cities such as Delhi and Mumbai the dedicated covid-19 wards are virtually empty (smaller towns struggled to open any in the first place). A doctor at a major government hospital quipped that it must now be harder to contract the virus in Delhi than anywhere abroad. Indias economy is still wonky, but for most of the summer stockmarket indices have been reaching new heights. Yet this palpable sense of relief is hard to square with the recent memory of mass death, when fields of bodies were buried hastily along the Ganges. How did India manage to beat covid-19?
The plain fact is that, instead, covid-19 beat India. The world watched anxiously in April and May, when the caseloads were climbing almost vertically. The terror was justified. India was gripped by the first outbreak of the Delta variant (briefly called the Indian variant, until the WHO insisted on switching to Greek letters). Its ferocity taught lessons that some parts of the world are still learning. Indians died in untold numbers. To judge by the number of excess deaths, something like 2.3m lost their lives to the disease. Those who survived rued the governments failure to procure vaccines earlier, when India had positioned itself as a pharmaceutical factory for the world. The rate of vaccinations went from a trickle to an erratic drip, as systems of every kind shut down. And then in June, almost exactly as fast as the wave of infections had shot up, it shot down again. Not 10% of the population had been vaccinated (see chart). Within two weeks it was back down to pre-Delta levels. No thanks to any medical intervention.
A survey of blood samples published this week shows that more than 90% of Delhis residents have antibodies against covid-19 coursing through their veins. Having weathered the crisis at its worst, Indians are kept safe by natural immunity. The campaign to vaccinate India, slow and sometimes wobbly, has been making steady progress nonetheless. Sometimes it gets a fillip, as when a one-day jabbing extravaganza was organised to celebrate Mr Modis 71st birthday. During the darkest days of Indias pandemic, he had hidden himself out of view. Now Mr Modi is eager to put his portrait on every official vaccination certificate. On October 21st a private airline, Spicejet, emblazoned three of its planes with the prime ministers face to congratulate him on immunising so many of his countrymen. But the immunisation that mattered had happened months earlier.
More than half of all Indians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and almost 25% are considered to be fully vaccinated. That is a fine thing, as even natural immunity wanes. The government is now vaccinating a solid 6m or more every day, while monitoring a caseload of about 150,000 covid-positive patients. At the current rate of progress, India ought to have safeguarded itself against a third wave (really, a second wave of Delta) by the time one might recur on a cyclical basis. There is no more discussion of containing or extirpating the coronavirus. For most people who managed to hold on to their health and livelihood through this grim year, life is getting back to normal (though the nations schoolchildren and their parents, still reeling from the worlds longest school closures, would like to have a word). Once again India may be stumbling into the leadas the rest of the world adjusts itself to endemic covid-19.
More from The Economist explains:Why official covid-19 deaths do not capture the pandemics true tollWhat are DNA vaccines?Why Hong Kongs zero-covid strategy could backfire
While many states are poised to reopen, which includes non-essential businesses, the coronavirus has not yet been eradicated. Keeping up with the current happenings can be challenging, especially as guidelines change on when and how you can move around the community. Here is what you need to know about the COVID-19 outbreak today.
Illinois health officials on Friday reported 14,616 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, along with 183 additional deaths and over 348,196 new vaccine doses administered.
In all, 1,695,524 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state since the pandemic began, according to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. The additional deaths reported this week bring the state to 25,771 confirmed COVID fatalities.
The state has administered 796,018 tests since last Friday, officials said, bringing the total to more than 35 million tests conducted during the pandemic.
The states seven-day positivity rate on all tests remained at 2.2% last week, officials said. The rolling average seven-day positivity rate for cases as a percentage of total tests dropped to 1.8% from 2% one week prior.
Over the past seven days, a total of 348,196 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered to Illinois residents. The latest figures brought the states average to 49,742 daily vaccination doses over the last week, per IDPH data.
More than 15.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in Illinois since vaccinations began in December. More than 54% of Illinois resident are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with more than 69% receiving at least one dose.
As of midnight Thursday, 1,256 patients were hospitalized due to COVID in the state. Of those patients, 281 are in ICU beds, and 133 are on ventilators.
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies said on Friday they may never be able to identify the origins of COVID-19, as they released a new, more detailed version of their review of whether the coronavirus came from animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab.
The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses for how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans. But it said analysts disagree on which is more likely or whether any definitive assessment can be made at all.
The report also dismissed suggestions that the coronavirus originated as a bioweapon, saying proponents of this theory "do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and have been accused of spreading disinformation.
The report issued on Friday is an update of a 90-day review that President Joe Biden's administration released in August, amid intense political infighting over how much to blame China for the effects of the global pandemic rather than governments that may not have moved quickly enough to protect citizens.
Former Republican President Donald Trump - who lost his bid for re-election as the pandemic ravaged the U.S. economy - and many of his supporters referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus."
Some U.S. spy agencies had strongly favored the explanation that the virus originated in nature. But there has been little corroboration and over recent months the virus has spread widely and naturally among wild animals.
The ODNI report said four U.S. spy agencies and a multi-agency body have "low confidence" that COVID-19 originated with an infected animal or a related virus.
But one agency said it had "moderate confidence" that the first human COVID-19 infection most likely was the result of a laboratory accident, probably involving experimentation or animal handling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
U.S. spy agencies believe they will not be able to produce a more definitive explanation for the origin of COVID-19 without new information demonstrating that the virus took a specific pathway from animals to humans or that a Wuhan laboratory was handling the virus or a related virus before COVID-19 surfaced.
The report said U.S. agencies and the global scientific community lacked "clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest COVID-19 cases" and said it could revisit this inconclusive finding if more evidence surfaces.
China has faced international criticism for failing to cooperate more fully in investigations of COVID's origins.
China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Mark Hosenball; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Writing by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sandra Maler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Scientists in Germany warned in a new study that an older COVID-19 variant can evade coronavirus vaccines, spelling potential trouble if the variant were to ever resurface.
Per Newsweek, the scientists said the A.30 variant can evade the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
Data from GISAID show about five cases of the A.30 variant exist throughout the world.
The scientists in Germany said the A.30 variant warrants close monitoring and rapid installment of countermeasures even if its not spreading widely.
COVID-19 variants have not worried experts in recent weeks because the delta variant appeared to knock them out of contention, stopping them from spreading fast, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
However, experts have been monitoring a delta variant subtype called AY.4.2 that has been spreading in England, per Business Insider.
The variant has created a small rise of COVID-19 cases in the U.K. And thats why Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said experts should monitor the variant to make sure it doesnt spread.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 245.5 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.98 million. More than 6.94 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed a contract to supply 50 million COVID-19 vaccines for US children.
Malaysia has also announced it will buy the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11.
New COVID-19 cases in Britain are down nearly 10% in the past week, with 39,842 new confirmed cases reported yesterday.
It comes as the UK announces will it will remove the final seven countries on its COVID-19 travel 'red list'. New arrivals from these countries - Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela - are currently required to spend 10 days in hotel quarantine.
COVID-19 restrictions have been tightened in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. It comes as the country reported new record daily COVID-19 cases - 26,071.
From Monday, some COVID-19 restrictions will be eased in South Korea, marking the start of its plan to 'live with COVID-19'.
One hundred former presidents, prime ministers and government ministers have written to the G20 urging them to agree on how to transfer surplus COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries.
COVID-19 vaccines have arrived at Australia's Casey research station in Antarctica, authorities said on Friday, allowing researchers to be inoculated before they return home.
Moscow has introduced its strictest COVID-19 curbs in more than a year as nationwide cases and deaths hit new highs.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.
Image: Our World in Data
The World Health Organization (WHO) and other aid groups have appealed to leaders of the world's biggest 20 economies to fund a $23.4 billion plan to bring COVID-19 vaccines, tests and drugs to the world's poorest countries in the next 12 months.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Group of 20, whose leaders are meeting in Rome at the weekend, had the political and financial power needed to end the pandemic by funding the plan, which he said could save five million lives.
"The request is for $23.4 billion. That's a fair amount of money, but if you compare with the damage also done to global economy by the pandemic it is not really that much," Carl Bildt, WHO Special Envoy to the ACT-Accelerator, told reporters earlier.
"I hope and urge that the G20 will make a commitment to end the pandemic," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, whose country co-chairs the fund-raising effort, told the media briefing.
The WHO has warned that less than 10% of African countries are set to hit the year-end target of fully vaccinating 40% of their populations unless efforts are made to accelerate the pace.
Just five African countries are on course to hit the goal, with just three - Seychelles, Mauritius and Morocco - having already done so. Only Tunisia and Cabo Verde are set to join them.
It's not just vaccine dose supplies that are a concern, though. UNICEF has reported an imminent shortfall of up to 2.2 billion auto-disable syringes for COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization in 2022.
The looming threat of a vaccine commodities crisis hangs over the continent. Early next year COVID-19 vaccines will start pouring into Africa, but a scarcity of syringes could paralyze progress. Drastic measures must be taken to boost syringe production, fast. Countless African lives depend on it, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
Each of our Top 50 social enterprise last mile responders and multi-stakeholder initiatives is working across four priority areas of need: Prevention and protection; COVID-19 treatment and relief; inclusive vaccine access; and securing livelihoods. The list was curated jointly with regional hosts Catalyst 2030s NASE and Aavishkaar Group. Their profiles can be found on www.wef.ch/lastmiletop50india.
Top Last Mile Partnership Initiatives to collaborate with:
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
